Edification
by Nicholas Perle
Summary: A collection of random drabbles, ficlets, character-exploration bits... anything I've written down randomly that's too short or odd to have a better home. (Caution: May Contain Random Spoilers)
1. Gold Stars

**Author's Note**: Hi! Welcome to my series of... drabble-things. Yeah, I don't have a better name for them. This will basically be my place for all the random drabbles for fma-100 (technically, that's an underscore there)and bits of fics I write down that have no other home and don't warrant a seperate heading. I'll also take requests here, because I'm always up for a challenge, so fire away. And the title... yeah, I'm just trying to be witty.

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**Title**: Gold Stars  
**Characters**: Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes  
**Genre**: Humour  
**Spoilers**: None! None whatsoever!  
**Random Notes**: Written for the mental image... really should have been fanart, if I was capable of drawing. Hehehehe.

It had been another tough day for Roy Mustang. People were avoiding him again. He probably had that look in his eyes. The one that said "Look at me again and you're toast. Literally." He'd been proud of it when he'd first mastered it, but he hardly noticed anymore when it was there, except by the way that people glanced warily at his gloved hands and moved out of the way. The office was empty, and he fell back into his chair with a sigh. Life in Eastern Headquarters should have at least been quieter. The people in Central wanted him out of the way, didn't they? With all this work, they'd have to promote him soon. At that thought, he smiled. Just another step along the way…

He finally forced himself to look at the pile of paperwork sitting on his desk. By the looks of it, he was probably several days behind. Maybe paperwork wasn't such a good idea after all. Leaning back in his chair yet again, strongly considering a nap, he noticed a letter had been stuffed into the middle of a stack of papers. The edges stuck out just enough to catch his attention, and he pulled it out, careful not to knock the rest of the papers onto the floor. There was no return address, but his name was scrawled onto the envelope in Hughes' familiar handwriting. He smirked. Cute… but what was the occasion? His birthday was still months away. He pulled the letter-opener out of the top drawer of his desk and freed the card. A sheet of gold star stickers fell out onto his desk as he opened it.

_I heard a rumour you're getting a promotion. You get a gold star! Now stop moping around the office._

_See you in Central,_

_- Still-a-lowly-Major Hughes_

Mustang smiled and picked up the sheet of stickers yet again. He peeled two of the stickers from the sheet, and stuck them to his epaulettes. They definitely spruced up the uniform. He'd been getting a little tired of the two little stars. Three was a much better number. But why stop there? With a grin he stuck on two more stickers. Okay, so he wouldn't see four stars until he was Fuhrer. Unless they invented a new rank just for him…

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts and Hawkeye, the only person who would ever disturb him when he was in one of his "moods," peered into the room. Roy looked up in time to see her raise an eyebrow at the stickers, and turn to leave.


	2. Poison Ivy

**Title**: Poison Ivy  
**Characters**: Ed and Al  
**Spoilers**: None, again!  
**Genre**: Humour  
**Random Note**: This, I admit, was written purely for the pun. And the pun is _bad_. So bad, I probably should have underlined bad, too. And I'm still iffy on my characterization of Ed and Al, because I don't write them often enough. I apologize ahead of time for the horrible fangirl-Japanese punchline.

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Edward and Alphonse Elric plodded through the woods. This had been, by far, the most useless mission the military had sent them on. The village, far off any well-travelled path and practically impossible to find in the middle of all these trees, was rumoured to be the hiding place of one of the greatest alchemists in recent history. He had been Doctor Marcoh's tutor, but had been missing since shortly before the Ishbal war. When they arrived in the place though, they found that the people there, every last one of them, had moved on long ago. All that remained of the small village were a few broken-down houses covered in vines with weeds growing all through the yards. Ed had climbed through them anyway, insisting on searching every last inch for some kind of clue, even though it was obvious there would be none to be found. Al didn't argue with him though. He followed behind, helping his brother lift some of the larger debris out of the way until Ed was finally exhausted enough to give up, cursing Colonel Mustang the entire way back through the woods.

It was several hours before they reached the main road again, and another two before they reached the nearest town. It was easy for a National Alchemist and his brother to get a room on credit, and Ed slept through the night with his brother silently watching.

Early the next morning Ed awoke, throwing back the covers. They were by far the scratchiest covers he had ever slept in. How had he ever fallen asleep last night? Looking around the room, he saw that Al was missing. A note on the nightstand next to the bed told him that Al had gone out to find him breakfast. He walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall and looked at himself. He put a hand through his bangs, attempting to straighten them out. He used his left hand rather than his right – it was a painful lesson to learn, whenever he got his hair tangled in the joints of his automail. Odd… the back of his hand looked redder than usual. He looked down at it. Some sort of rash appeared to have broken out. He scratched it with his right hand, and as he did so suddenly became aware of the same horrible itching feeling on other parts of his body. Near his waist, where his shirt tucked into his pants, around his ankles, every place that hadn't been consistently covered with clothing was _itchy_. Ed moaned and lay back down on the bed, waiting for Al to return. _Itchy!_

Al finally came back to the room, carrying a small tray laden with breakfast foods. He smiled, as best a suit of armour can smile, when he saw that Ed was already up.

"You're never up this early, nii-san."

"I know," Ed grumbled. "I'd still be asleep if I wasn't so _itchy_."

"Itchy?"

"Look!" Ed thrust his hand in front of Al's face, showing him the red blotchy rash that had broken out on it. "Do you think this is some kind of alchemical sickness? What could it be?"

Al paused for a moment, seeming to consider the possibilities. It didn't _look_ like some kind of alchemical sickness, at least. But it would still be a good idea to take his brother to see a doctor. Al sighed inwardly.

"I don't know, nii-san, but we should probably go have it looked at."

Ed scowled, but grudgingly agreed. He didn't like seeing doctors very much, but he could endure it for the sake of ending this itching. He scratched absentmindedly at his side, and groaned as he looked down. It seemed to be _spreading_.

"Aren't you going to eat something?" Al nudged Ed, trying to stop him from scratching furiously at his sides. "Nii-san, you need to eat. Then we'll go see a doctor."

"Fine."

Ed's tone seemed to be permanently stuck as a grumble this morning. He picked over the plate of food, nibbling only on the things he liked – totally ignoring the small glass of milk in favour of the orange juice. Al still tried, but at least he knew to provide an alternative.

Finally Ed stood and pulled on his coat. He winced as the wool scratched against the rash on his hands, now bright red from his incessant scratching. This was not good. He tried to keep himself from glaring at the coat. It was, after all, an inanimate object. Al led the way out of the hotel and down the small main street. He'd already taken part of the morning to get a feel for the small town, so it didn't take him long to find the doctor's office. This physician also doubled as a pharmacist and veterinarian for the town, and the two were forced to sit in a waiting room full of sneezing children, wailing animals, and bottles of ominous looking pills and liquids. Somehow, the people in the room managed to focus on Al, despite the absurdity of their own surroundings. They chattered back and forth in hushed whispers, and even some of the pets seemed to be speculating on him. He blushed, and tried to avoid eye contact with any of them. Sometimes, at times like this, he'd regret being trapped in this body, despite the sacrifice he knew his brother had made. He missed being able to feel things and not being a spectacle wherever he went. It almost made him wish he could be human again, just so he would be the one with the strange rash.

The doctor finally called them in after many uncomfortable minutes of Ed's itching and Al's attempts to look smaller than he really was. Ed sat down on the stool in the middle of the room as the doctor poked and prodded him, sticking things in his mouth and coaxing him to say "Ahhh." Ed grumbled and complained the entire time, watching the doctor warily, barely complying with what the man asked.

At length, the doctor leaned against the desk in the corner of the room, finally matching Edward's stare. A faint smirk crossed his face.

"Well, I say…" he began in a faintly accented tone. "Have you been in the woods lately?"

Ed continued to glare. Maybe his face was stuck like that now, Al mused. The doctor had slapped him on the back a few times.

"So?"

The doctor let out a good-natured laugh, the kind that all doctors seemed to be trained to do, even the most dire of situations.

"It looks to me, my boy, like you've got yourself a case of poison ivy." He pulled a small book from his desk drawer and opened it to a page near the back, then handed it to Ed. He pointed out a small picture of several types of plants, indicating a small, three-leafed version labelled 'Poison Ivy.' "It's nothing major. I thought most boys your age had had it before, but I guess it was wrong. There's a bottle of cream in the first shelf on the right in the waiting room. It's in a white bottle, that'll stop the itch. Just pick it up on your way out."

The doctor gave another of his good-natured laughs as Al read over Ed's shoulder, then took the book back from Ed's hands and ushered the two out.

As it turned out, Ed was too short to reach the bottle of cream in the waiting room, but Al was quick to pull it down and save Ed the extra embarrassment. He simply glowered and turned a deeper shade of red than he already had been as the two made their way out of the office. When they reached the street, Al began to giggle.

"What is it, Al?" Ed asked.

"I just remembered what mom always used to tell us."

"Oh?"

"When you were running through the fields at home, mom would always warn you about poison ivy, but you never listened. We always forgot what it looked like. But now I know I'll remember." He giggled again.

"What?" Ed was at the end of his temper, the height of the shelves being near the last straw.

"It's simple. One-two-three leaves makes an itchy nii-san."

Ed groaned, and walked faster back towards the hotel.


	3. Unexpected?

**Title**: Unexpected?  
**Characters**: Roy, Riza, and Black Hayate  
**Genre**: Humour, Deathfic  
**Random Notes**: 200-word double-drabble (each paragraph's 100), written for the fma-100 "Kill" challenge.

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It was against regulations to keep a dog in the office. That regulation was the only one that Lt. Hawkeye blatantly disregarded, and for the most part Roy Mustang tolerated the canine's presence. When that dog peed on his boot for the third time that day, though, it was the last straw. Hawkeye said nothing as the Colonel stood, cursing and trying to kick the puppy across the room. She simply stopped polishing her gun, set it carefully on the desk, and walked out into the hallway to find some paper towels. Standard procedure. Mustang would've sworn she was laughing.

The gunshot had not been expected. It wasn't like Roy to overreact, and it certainly wasn't like him to _ever_ remove his gun from its holster. Hawkeye suspected he often forgot it was even there, though she couldn't comprehend how. She hurried back to the scene, preparing herself for the worst. She most certainly hadn't expected to see her Colonel bloody, slouched against his desk with Black Hayate, slightly singed, sitting at attention on top of the charred ruins of her own desk with her gun in his teeth. There would be no explaining this to the authorities. She fled.


	4. Death

**Title**: Fine French Dining (and Death)  
**Characters**: The sins, "that person," a cameo, anda Mary Sue  
**Spoilers**: Who "that person" is. Which is around 40s-ish in the anime, so if you don't know who it is, you probably don't want to read this. Spoilers are bad.  
**Genre**: Humour, Deathfic  
**Random Notes**: Another one written for the "Kill" challenge. Still couldn't fit it in 100 words, so this one goes 50-100-50-100. I've got a habit of random self-imposed rules when I can't follow the rules. The plot device is slightly off factually, for reasons I imagine you'll understand. Yay! Bonus points for people that get the reference in the first sentence.

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Every so often, to throw her callous exterior into sharp relief, Dante would take it upon herself to treat the sins to a nice dinner. Occasionally an eighth would show up, claiming to be another sin, but she disposed of them quickly. Freeloaders always put her in a sour mood.

On this night "Avarice" appeared, very persistent about claiming a free meal. French restaurants always attracted the most unrelenting ones. Dante was so distracted trying to explain how avarice was simply a fancy word for greed that she forgot to remind the new Lust to keep Gluttony from ordering the frog legs. If there was one thing she didn't need, it was to lose another Gluttony to frog legs. Despite new formulas, it seemed they always had a fatal attraction. It was beyond her why they inevitably caused them to drop dead. Frog legs; what kind of weakness was that?

She couldn't be blamed for her inattention. This one claimed that eight sins were more _symmetrical_. Busy outlining the tedious references to ancient religions, she didn't hear Gluttony mutter something to the waiter that sounded like "grenouille." Weary of the argument, Dante summoned the gate and threw the offender inside.

It was nearly an hour before the food arrived – these restaurants counted on your belief that quality took _time_. Time was also what Dante needed to convince the other patrons that they hadn't just seen a great large gate appear in the middle of the restaurant. She swore that she would rent out the entire restaurant if they ever went out again. While she was arguing with an unusually sparkly couple with a young son, the food arrived. She paid it no mind. That is, until the unmistakable smell of dissolving homunculus permeated the air. This was _not_ her day.


End file.
